A note of vindication for New Zealand and Gillette

The Fusion Razor and Fusion Power have arrived - shining, massive, soul-shaking displays of them scattered throughout supermarkets all over the country. At long last, the Schick Quatro and old-timey Mach III are put in their rightful worldly place - the refuse heap. Shaving technology has evolved, and those less-capable 3 and 4-blade razors are about to become endangered...

What's this?!?

Gillette has just come out with the Gillette Fusion Power Phantom. According to the ad copy - "Gillette Fusion Power is so advanced, you'll barely feel the blades. The micro-pulses help reduce friction and increase razor glide - for a shave so good, the ladies will never even see you coming."

Great shiny dag! You could probably shear a sheep with that razor! And what a good looking piece of lamb-meat THAT would be...

It seems that razors have come a long way from the old straight-edge. Back in ye olden days, I bet girls could see the guys coming from miles away - shaving with only one big, non-powered blade like that. And who wants to shave their face with a mini-meat cleaver anyway?

No matter what we do - six blades, twelve blades, electromagnetic vibro-pulse precision blades, America will always find a way to be one step ahead of this shaving evolutionary curve. It's astounding that New Zealand can be left in the silky smooth wake of a country where 48% of the folk don't even believe in evolution, according to the latest Newsweek poll. In fact, about the same percentage of Americans take creationism as fact, and believe the earth was created 10,000 years ago in its present form. That's as crazy as saying that six blades came before four! Or why not try to just "come up" with an idea like micro-pulses without having something like a moisture lube-strip first?

It's probably easy enough for Americans to believe in things like creationism when they're plopped in front of a television for an average of more than 4 hours a day (when do they have the time to shave?). So while they're catching up on televangelism, CSI, and Fox News, New Zealanders are out swimming (or shaving?) in Lake Taupo - a 600-sq-km lake formed 26,500 years ago by one of the biggest volcanic eruptions in history. Or they're exploring the glowworm caves in Waitomo, which have cave formations dated at 750,000 years old, based on rates of stalactite and stalagmite creation of approx 1 cubic centimeter every hundred years.

Surrounded by a nation of volcanoes, fault lines, exposed uplifted sea-bed, ancient species, and dated razor blades, it's a bit easier to take a step back from all the talking points, dogma, ad copy, and razor smooth cutting-edge science. Down in New Zealand, we're not bothered by ideas of stealth technology shaving. We may not own the very latest toys or gadgets. We're not wrapped up in the latest fashions (you saw the hair-do's). We just eat lamb from the barbie, wear our shorts at mid-thigh, and if a lady sees you coming, then good on ya mate.

So don't look down on us just because we're not Phantom-powered yet. When we're sitting on the harbor at dinnertime, drinking Speights and watching the sun glint off the hill-side houses, we're happy enough. I guess we just don't know what we're missing.